The Risen

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Expansion: What's it Like to be Risen?

“To assert our individuality is to rise … into that more highly specialized use of the Law which brings freedom rather than bondage, joy in the place of grief.”

~ Ernest Holmes ~

It was recently shared with me about someone who had been
advised by her son, who is still embodied on earth, about receiving guidance
from his father and her husband, who had transitioned around seven years ago. Her son
explained that “Dad’s alive” and that he and his father “interfaced … (it
feels) like Dad, but expanded. Like he could see everything all at once.” While
this may make sense to her on some levels because she is still able to maintain
an awareness of her husband’s energy around her, it’s clear that it’s very
intimate and experiential, making it difficult to explain much further, and so
she’s wondering if anyone could suggest more about this expanded state of
consciousness. Tim and I had actually been discussing what his life has been
like in his current Risen state of consciousness, and so felt perhaps we could
offer a little information that we trust might be useful.

The first thing we’d like to respond to is the idea of
expansion, which applies to those of us still on the Earth as well. It’s quite
simple, because all it really means is the absence of fear, and then the absence
of resistance to the expansion. Fear is contraction, which you might notice as your body's breathing becomes shallow or stops. If you can imagine what it must be like to live
and move about with absolutely no fear, you might begin to understand what our
loved ones are experiencing. And if you can understand this, your vibration
automatically becomes higher and finer, and thus begins the process of growth
that will allow us to resonate with our Risen loved ones, and then the shared
resonance becomes the transmission and receiving of information—primarily
through feelings—which is the communication and dialogue we are hoping for.

The following is an excerpt from The Risen: Dialogues of Love, Grief & Survival Beyond Death:

“Envision with your mind’s eye a world where
poverty is impossible and abundance unavoidable. Because there are no needs
there is no necessity to work. There is instant access to infinite sustenance,
clothing, shelter, and anything else you might desire. This will be so for
everyone there, for these elements will be freely available to all. Hence an
economic system of any kind—which implies lack—will not be needed in this
world, unless you might want it for yourself. The same will hold true for any
social, psychological, political, scientific, and religious systems, which all
inherently embrace presumptions of lack and need. The environment—the weather,
the light, the mode of transport, and your homes—will continuously reflect your
personal consciousness.

“Everyone in this world is free to do whatever
they like and as much or as little of it. Work and play are indistinguishable
from one another. You will work and play, and live and love with those who are
most like you, for in this realm the Principle of Affinity is the guiding force
of relationships. Those who are not like you will be with others who are most
like them.(1)

“Most relieving of all, there is no judgment or
criticism of any kind in this world, no matter how much we may think we deserve
it. If that should be the case, we would be judging only our self and not
prevented from such a desire. Rather than judgment, we can expect and welcome
only adjustment. The Principle of Affinity will convey us into an environment that
reflects our self-judgments. Although nobody will attempt to interfere with our
self-judgmental behavior there will always be observant, compassionate Helpers
waiting to respond to the slightest request to help release any such unkind intentions
toward oneself.

“Because we will be able to perceive that there is
love freely available to all in this new world the usual distortions from lack
of it will not exist, and any falsehoods will vanish quickly when we allow
ourselves to fall into love’s awaiting arms. This falling into love will be as
easy as breathing, for we are designed to self-correct through change—that is,
through intelligent transition. “Death” is also corrected through this loving
process of transition, from which we will emerge and arise anew.

“This other world exists right now and awaits us at every
moment. We already know this Home with great intimacy, for whenever our body
sleeps and sometimes when we daydream we visit it and all those there whom we
love. Each of us has been leaving our terrestrial body—rising from it—to travel
in our spiritual body to this other world, this home, since the day we first
arose upon the Earth. Very few of us remember these travels upon returning to
our terrestrial body, so heavily does earthly life weigh us down. The sheer
density of our physical body filters out the greatly finer vibrations of such
memories. If we could remember even just a little bit, our burdensome grief
would be tremendously lightened by the awe of such experiences, and further
comforted by the sureness that the day will come when we will take our last
step away from this Earth, never having to return.”

As reported in our first book, The Risen Dialogues, along with some additional reflections in the
upcoming new book, Tim initially had the following to say, which was about five
years after his transition and relocation to his new existence. I had asked him
if he could explain how he moves through his world as a Risen person. He had apparently
recreated his small and cozy studio apartment as well as the Greenwich Village neighborhood
in New York City where he had lived when on the Earth, and tried to give me a
sense of what this was like for him:

“I see you are wondering what lies beyond this tiny apartment
where my cat, Bigfoot and I sometimes rest. Nothing and yet everything lies
beyond it. When I go for walks through the old neighborhood it’s the same, yet
so much more. Each and every thing is alive, suffused by glowing, pulsating,
prismatic lights, filled with life and energy as the sun-filled trees in the
parks, effervescent as the fountains which give forth music, their waters
welling up and cascading down pieces of sculpture that are never the same.
Birds, animals, butterflies, and flowers of exquisite and dramatic beauty
populate this geography. It is all a manifestation of my mind, yet infinitely
more. It is also a co-manifestation, for there are many other Risen here, drawn
together by the resonance of our minds, united by curiosity and love and the
never-ending desire to experience and share. Some of the people are familiar to
me, many are not, but all are enjoying themselves and each other. Sometimes the
landscape will gently change and appear as if several geographies exist in the
same place, as many souls overlap here in similar ways of vibration of mind and
emotion.

“Although many prefer to walk in this sort of environment, some
float or fly. There are those who take pleasure in vehicles of every kind, from
old Model T’s to trains, planes, and even boats on gentle streams, scaled down
for individual use or for small groups of people. I’ve never seen anything like
your giant jets that carry hundreds of people at a time although there is
nothing barring such things, so I’m sure they must exist somewhere. It all depends
on what we allow our minds to manifest.

“Many travel through the purity of thoughtful desire, meaning that
the mere thought of wanting to be somewhere results in instantly being there. They
prefer this method of movement to all others. We each choose our method of
passage according to taste and need, whatever pleases us.

“I can seemingly walk forever onward but never come to an end, as
if eternity is contained within a few short blocks. You and I have been shown
and now understand, to a very limited degree, that one of the infinite truths
about ‘forever’ is that we manifest
it. Some might say we create it but to be nit-picky, everything has already
been created and so everything already just is. We are the shapers and shifters
of creation, causing it to manifest as it pleases us. There is no end to
anything, no walls or boundaries. There are no finalities simply because
wherever you go, there you are, something that people on Earth already intuit.
On the Risen level we say, ‘As you go, you are.’ We could say that this going,
this movement, is one’s manifested reality … it is the manifested realization
of one’s immortality.”

Tim’s description is rendered here into
understandable language of the material for terrestrial people, but still does
not come close to truly describing his intimate experience of his spiritual
reality. Essentially, he is saying that his experience of life—his actual
world—principally arises as his consciousness arises from within any present
moment. His world experience unceasingly unfolds in direct response to his
thoughtful or even thoughtless presence—somehow even before each step he takes in any direction. Because there is only
his presence he is always present; he is always now. This never-ending now is his
immortality. It is the same for those of us on Earth.

His presence is his present, which is a form of
mind, or “mind in formation.” While this mind information is similar to that
which we terrestrials call “thought” it is not thinking as we know it. If I
want to join him in some manner from my present moment, I must find a way to
consciously be with him at the point where our presences intersect—which is
always in the present and not in past nostalgic reminiscences, or in future
expectations. The way in which I use my mind becomes of the utmost importance
in this endeavor.

Without his former body’s dense material and its
ego-mind, Tim’s lens of awareness is able to focus on a larger range of living
than mine. So it might be said that he is waiting ahead of me, which for me
would be foreknowledge. When we each focus our lens of awareness toward one
another, the interception is where we meet and join in awareness. Because I now
have knowledge that he is waiting ahead for me, I’ve achieved a bit of that
which some might call faith and which I increasingly experience as knowing. Tim
responds to my ponderings here from his Risen state:

“August, it’s not so much that I’m ‘waiting ahead’ for you, but it’s
more that our movement within and against different backgrounds makes it seem
so. I truly comprehend the difficulty there is in finding a way to compare our
two very different experiences of awareness of self while living in different
dimensions of space and time. Like space, time has a reality and its beauty is
seen and experienced in differing realities, and in changing reality. We can
see that change is rooted in Nature—that we are Nature, and change is time. But
change is also space.

“Your geography is usually described on earth as an experience of
Space-Time. Space appears to stand still while events are perceived to change
by passing through it in a linear, timely way, manifesting impressions of past,
present, and future. The Risen geography could be said to be an experience of
Time-Space. Time appears to stand still while space appears to change as I move
through it. As on Earth—and some of you are beginning to grasp this—the Risen
interpret and utilize these appearances, which are actually thoughts, as
movement or modes of transportation. All time events are occurring
simultaneously, reflecting the Risen observation that Creation is finished and
always available for manifested exploration. Space-Time and Time-Space, and
other combinations of light and sound are the mediums of exploration, the
finger paints of the cosmic playroom. You, the Yet-To-Rise, can and do
experience Risen Time-Space via spiritual events and realizations—as well as altered
states of consciousness, which also include pain and suffering.

“To get some feel for this, I’ll try to use an earthly experience
as an illustration that most people can understand. It sort of works because it
reflects the experience of an actual train ride you might take on Earth. It’s
as if I’m sitting in a train which is moving along at a very fast speed—meaning
a state of higher vibration. As I look out the window on the side where I’m
sitting, those things closer to the train appear to race past me very quickly,
as they would on an earthly train ride—so space appears to change as I move
through time.

“Simultaneously, those things that are further away, which are the
lower vibrating landscapes of Earth, also appear to move but much more slowly.
From my train I can see the combined Risen and Earth landscapes as well as many
of their details, but not all. Those objects in the middle ground also move but
at a different rate. I can see these different-paced, different-spaced areas
simultaneously through the one window, and I can also see them moving in
different relationships with one another. Depending on where you are within
that passing landscape, I can see more of your life than you can, while mine
moves along at its faster pace which still keeps pace with yours. We might even
get a brief glimpse of one another.

“Someone in another Risen train traveling alongside mine might see
what I see, but in a different way, and from a different perspective. My
present Risen State is a little like being in a train at times, although you
can see how the analogy breaks down quickly if I try to move beyond this very
simplified form. Rather like trying to walk through a moving train while having
to pee really badly.”

My thanks to Tim! Any comfort we can find from even the slightest of ideas along the
way is a sign that grief continues to transform and evolve. We want you to see
that people still on Earth can form a
new relationship with anyone who has transitioned, and especially after the
grief they have both been sharing has eased.

I would also like to share a bit about my conscious forays
into Risen geographies, albeit still in extremely limited ways. It is an
enormously rare thing and it can be frustrating finding adequate language to articulate
such non-word experiences. The following has been excerpted from a chapter in
the new book, still in progress, The
Risen: A Companion to Grief.

“After my body fell asleep that night I found
myself standing on the top of the mountain behind the same Appalachian
farmhouse, and could see the land stretching out far beneath and beyond me. The
beauty of the green hills, flowers, and the clouds simply cannot be described—‘beauty’
even sounds like an unattractive word to use. I’ve always loved the term ‘Summerland’
that is often used in the older spiritualist writings, and while it barely does
justice to this land I found myself in, I would like to use it here.

“I was completely conscious and aware of where I
was. Rather than try to describe the physical environment any further, it seems
more appropriate to speak about the emotional environment—for that is really
what it all is, manifesting in outer forms—an outward effect caused by my “is-ness”
of inner reality. I almost fainted from the up-rushing of the fountain of
feelings that lit up each and every cell of my astral-etheric body, and I could
see my hands glowing, as well as light emerging from my fingertips, and even from
my eyes. The feeling was one of ultra-intense longing mixed with relief, tinged
with the fleeing of the grief one feels of having left a beloved Home, but now
finally returned, where any other idea than feeling safe and sound could not
possibly exist. My whole being wept—there are no physical tears in the
Summerland, for water plays a very different role there—but if I had been on
Earth, I would have been sobbing and laughing at the same time. This sensation
of weeping was almost frightening in its intensity and there was an awareness
that it would have literally melted my terrestrial body away in an instant.

"I saw a familiar friend who had transitioned some
years ago, who also notice me. He hardly gave me a glance and just waved a
brief “hi!” my way as he resumed some task he was about. I realized that I
probably appeared to him like a barely tangible ghost, transparent and perhaps
difficult to hear. I then noticed another friend, who apparently was visiting
from her sleep in her earthly bed, just like me. She emitted the same vivid but
gentle light like mine. This is how visitors would see each other, even though
the Risen would most likely see us as thin veils of energy, perhaps in the form
of a person, but not necessarily. I’ve been made to understand that the Risen
might see each other as glowing beings of light or otherwise, depending on their
own dimensional viewpoint.

“The three of us sat down in a nearby field and
shared about our lives, intimate things which must remain private here. Then, eventually,
slowly, I awakened back in my body in my earthly bed, both cats resting on my
chest and peering intently into my face. When I realized that I was back in the
terrestrial dimension, I began to experience the opposite of what I had felt
when I had first entered Summerland—my whole being wept, but for a different
reason. I felt lost, abandoned, and shattered. My first thought, was, “Oh god,
no ... how can I endure another second of this?
There is no way I can ever get out of this bed and start walking in this world
of dismal gravity and shadows.” I began to feel overwhelmingly depressed, and
if not for my guides who chanted soothing comforts in my ears, I don’t know how
I would have made it. It took nearly two hours to get out of bed, and then
almost the entire day of unceasing prayer to feel reconnected with Creative
Source within and resume an earthly existence. Although I eventually felt fully
grounded, for many days afterward I couldn’t stop thinking about that Summerland.”

__________________________

(1) All of these experiences are potentially
available to us while still on Earth, if we would let allow them.

"Creativity is the principle of novelty. Creativity introduces novelty into the content of the many, which are the universe disjunctively. The creative advance is the application of this ultimate principle of creativity to each novel situation which it originates. The ultimate metaphysical principle is the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction. The novel entity is at once the togetherness of the 'many' which it finds and also it is one among the disjunctive ' many' which it leaves; it is a novel entity, disjunctively among the many entities which it synthesizes. The many become one, and are increased by one. In their natures, entities are disjunctively 'many' in process of passage into conjunctive unity... Thus the 'production of novel togetherness' is the ultimate notion embodied in the term concrescence. These ultimate notions of 'production of novelty' and 'concrete togetherness' are inexplicable either in terms of higher universals or in terms of the components participating in the concrescence. The analysis of the components abstracts from the concrescence. The sole appeal is to intuition.-- (Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 26)

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"Because we do not know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustable well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."
-- Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

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"The instrument of thought, which has produced this world that does not work properly, is no longer valid. So perhaps this instrument of thought is worn out. Is there another instrument we can use?" -- Krishnamurti

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"...Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song, and the sun for his radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self-congratulation on the excellence of the human mind. Nature is a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless; merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly."
-- Alfred North Whitehead - English mathematician & philosopher (1861-1947)___________________________________

". . . keeping the Risen concept of weaving in mind, perhaps at this point it can be sensed that what we have before us, from which we are inseparable and as reflected in this book, is a Supreme Tapestry. There appears to be a Very Grand Design which we all follow, either in awareness
or not, co-creatively or not -- recalling that creative means fun. As we weave we are free to make it up as we go along in any way we please, simultaneously staying within the Grand Design as imagined by Higher Imaginals, of whom we an inseparable part. The Grand Design is a work of perfections intermingled with imperfections, solutions with mistakes, and stillness within movement. The Higher Imaginals are many things, but for our purposes here, it suffices to say that they are very advanced and evolved individuals, or Higher Selves."
(from The Risen: Dialogues of Love, Grief & Survival Beyond Death; Chapter 13, Mundus Imaginalis, p. 165).